My Story

On Sunday the 27th of November, we are going to get on our bikes and ride 750 kilometers from Melbourne to Adelaide to raise money for brain cancer research in honour of our beautiful and inspiring mother, Rhonda Kellock, who we lost to brain cancer in 2014.

We want to tell you a bit about the beautiful Mum we knew and now remember, every day of our lives.

Our Mum was an extremely passionate, proud and hard working woman who devoted her life to us, her three children, Lewis, Charlie and Daisy.
Mum was an extremely active person, and a driving force in the Keith community for as along as we can remember.

In November of 2012, our lives were turned upside down, after Mum was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. Despite our lack of knowledge of brain cancer and its aggressiveness, we remained hopeful that she would get better in time. However, as the months went by, it soon became apparent that this disease was unbeatable, even for our Mum.

After 2 years of missing her, we thought it was time to get up and do something to make a difference, just like she would have. So in November, we are going to ride over 100 kilometres a day, from Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne, where Mum was a boarder in her senior years of school, through our home town of Keith and on to Adelaide, to raise money for brain cancer research, in honour of Mum.

As her children, we are constantly reminded of just how incredible she was, and are in awe of her achievements and will never forget her dedication to her community and her family.

One of the things the family wanted to ensure was that the money raised went to an organisation that is highly respected, nationally and internationally, for its research into brain cancer and that it is also undertaking groundbreaking research into the type of cancer that Mum had. (Glioblastoma - GBM).

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a fast growing tumour and only 5% of people survive GBM. It kills more people under 40 in Australia than any other cancer. Over the past 30 years, brain cancer survival rates have barely increased.

QBI's Professor Linda Richards and her team of researchers have identified a protein which plays a key role in brain cancer, opening the door to potential new treatments. Scientists have found have that the NFIB protein, which regulates brain development before birth, can also affect the growth of brain cancer.

Professor Richards says, " Crucially, our study identified that increasing the level of NFIB in human brain cancer cells stopped the cancer from growing. This in turn opens the door for long-term research into whether we can prevent the cancers in the first place, by maintaining healthy NFIB levels.”

Further research will help determine whether increasing the levels of NFIB, using drugs that are already available, will slow the growth of brain cancers.

Around 1600 people are diagnosed with brain cancer in Australia annually and approximately 1200 die from the disease every year.

We truly believe that the money we raise is going to make a genuine difference to people’s lives and we would be so grateful to have your support. We will keep you up to date with progress before, during and following the ride…for Rhonda!

Priority Research QBI

Donations Summary

601
Number of donations

$151.63
Average donation

$91,132.25
Donated so far

Charity

Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) The University of Queensland

The Queensland Brain Institute works to understand the development, organisation and function of the brain. We aim to understand the neural circuits in the brain, how their function results in behavioural outcomes, and how dysfunction of these circuits leads to disorders such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.